Hidden and Found
by Ghargr18
Summary: They were chasing her. Her past had finally caught up with her. A connection to her ancient people, dormant for so long, was roused at the back of her mind. At least one of them must be a Time Lord. Time Lord. Danger. Only one Time Lord she knew of had survived the Time War. The Doctor. Death. Run. What if a young Gallifreyan was hidden on Earth? Rating for Time War references
1. Chapter 1

Panic gripped her as she saw the group of four people exiting a blue police box. A connection to her ancient people, dormant for so long, was roused at the back of her mind. The box was a TARDIS. So at least one of the occupants must be a Time Lord – there, the blonde woman in the middle who was keeping up a stream of chatter to her companions. Time Lord. Danger. Only one Time Lord she knew of had survived the Time War. The Doctor. Death. Run.

And so the girl took off down a side street. Ironically it was this action that gained the attention of those she had been trying to hide from.

The Doctor stopped suddenly, holding a hand to her head. 'Doctor?' Yaz asked worriedly 'Are you OK?'

'Fear… but not my fear' the Doctor mumbled 'Something got past my mental shields, but only a psychic bond could do that.' The Doctor stood up suddenly, and took off after the fleeing girl, leaving Yaz, Ryan and Graham to keep up as well as they could.

They were chasing her. They must know. How she had survived this long was anybody's guess, but her past had finally caught up with her. So caught up in her panic, the girl took a wrong turn. It was a dead end. No escape. She curled up behind a large bin in a vain hope she wouldn't be spotted. No such luck.

The Doctor skidded to a halt at the entrance to the dead end, her senses reaching out. She could feel someone, hiding behind a bin, but surely that was her mind playing tricks on her. After all, she was the last Time Lord… She rounded the corner to find a girl, who looked to be about 9 or 10, huddled behind a bin. As their eyes met, the Doctor felt a flash of terror across the back of her mind, who knew it was from this strange girl, who promptly threw herself on her knees.

As Yaz, Ryan and Graham rounded the corner, they saw a shell-shocked looking Doctor, standing over a girl speaking a strange language kneeling prostrate in front of her. As the girl stopped talking, the Doctor looked down at her in bewilderment. 'What?!'

The girl flinched back from the simple word, and began to speak in English. 'Oh, great Lady Doctor of the Noble House of Lungbarrow of the Worshipful Prydonian Chapter, I beg for you to show mercy unto me this day!'

The others were standing there as stunned as the Doctor, until she seemed to snap out of it, and recite 'I grant you mercy and protection this day, in which no harm shall come to you by my hand or word.' At this, the girl seemed to visibly relax, while still appearing terrified. The Doctor leaned down to put a hand on her shoulder, but the moment they made contact, there was a large blue flash at the point of contact, and the girl collapsed.

The Doctor swore under her breathe, and pulled out her sonic screwdriver. She scanned the girl, before hitting herself on the forehead. 'Stupid, temporal energy deficit. Not surprising if she's been here a while.' She span around to her companions. 'We need to get her to the TARDIS, but I can't touch her, obviously. Should be safe for humans though. Fortunately I've just finished… this!' She declared, sticking her screwdriver into the air. Immediately the familiar noise of the TARDIS sounded, and she materialised next to them.

The Doctor ran into the TARDIS, vanishing down a corridor. Snapping out of her shock, Yaz knelt by the young girl, letting her police officer training take over. She checked the girl's breathing, which seemed slightly strained, but not worryingly so. What concerned Yaz far more was her incredibly erratic pulse. Worried, Yaz listened to her heart, but to her surprised this sounded fine.

'How is she?' asked Ryan as he and Graham came over.

'Strange' replied Yaz, checking the heart again. 'Her pulse and heartbeat don't match up'. She was about to say something else, but the Doctor reappeared with a stretcher.

'Good work Yaz, checking her over!' the Doctor exclaimed as she appeared 'Can always rely on you lot. How's her other heart?' As one, the three companions turned to the Doctor

'Other…heart? What are you talking about Doc?' Graham looked incredibly confused, almost as confused as Ryan felt.

'She's a Time Lord, like me. Two hearts' the Doctor pointed at her two hearts, she was sure she'd told them this at some point. 'Yaz, Ryan, could you lift her up onto the stretcher please? I want to get her into the medical bay where I can keep an eye on her.'

'Time Lord?' Ryan asked, at the same moment Graham startled 'Here, Doc, you can't just go around kidnapping unconscious kids!'

'She needs help Graham, and no hospital on this planet could even diagnose her. Come on!'

They made short work of getting the girl onto the stretcher, and wheeling her into the med bay. The Doctor directed Yaz and Graham on how to attach various monitoring devices to her, and left to put the TARDIS into the Vortex, where they would be safer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**

**Thanks for all the great feedback! I've decided that, for now at least, this is going to be slightly AU as I am disregarding Day of the Doctor, and all the subsequent Gallifrey-related stuff. It's mostly been ignored in recent canon, and frankly I really dislike that plotline as it seems like an unnecessary cop-out. **

Sending the TARDIS flying into the Vortex, the Doctor leaned back on the console, deep in thought. How had the girl survived the Time War? How had she got to Earth? Why was she so terrified? Sighing, she though back to the girl's words to her earlier, which had been instantly familiar of course. At the Academy she'd realised ( or rather, he'd realised) that knowing the protocol for asking a vastly socially superior Time Lord to spare his life might come in handy with all the trouble he was always in.

She'd never expected to hear those words addressed to her though… She would need to answer all those questions soon, and although she knew the first one was the most important, she really didn't like children being scared of her.

Back in the med bay, Ryan and Graham had been keeping up a quiet conversation while Yaz tried to familiarise herself with the medical supplies. She kept half an eye on the instrument measuring the girl's vital signs, but frankly she had no idea what was normal for her. If a human showed those vital signs they'd be dead shortly.

The peace was broken by a quiet whimper coming from the bed, which prompted all of them to come over. 'Hey, don't worry, you're safe here' Graham reassured the disorientated girl. 'Just take a few deep breaths.' The girl seemed to calm down, until the Doctor came flying into the room. Struggling again the machines, the girl tried to get up, but the Doctor quickly stopped her.

'It's alright, just lie down there on the bed, we don't want you to cause anymore damage do we!' The girl obeyed, but stayed tense and fearful. The Doctor tried to ignore it, and tried to make herself as unthreatening as possible. 'So then, what's your name?'

The girl took a deep breath and, avoiding eye contact, replied 'I'm Beta Mu, of House Arwythel of the Scendeles Chapter, My Lady of Lungbarrow.' While Yaz, Ryan and Graham looked confused, the Doctor's eyes seemed to grow sad.

'Beta Mu? So you haven't graduated the Academy yet?'

'No, My Lady of Lungbarrow'

'You don't need to call me that, just call me the Doctor. How… how old are you? How long have you been on Earth?'

'I'm 64, Lady Doctor, and have been here for around 20 years.'

The Doctor gasped and took a step back, her eyes unreadable. Confusion continued to reign among the others. After all, how could a 64 year old look 9? They all exchanged glances, before turning back to the girl, who had slipped back into unconsciousness. Turning to the Doctor full of questions, they just saw the end of her coat tails as she fled

The Doctor ran down the hallways of the TARDIS, taking comfort from their mental bond. Such a young child, so terrified and so alone. So terrified of her. She was under no illusions of the horrors she had performed in the past, but surely they were justified? Weren't they? She had to believe they were, otherwise she wasn't sure how she could live with herself, when she had caused the deaths of so many.

She would keep her distance, and watch the medbay through the security systems, ensuring Beta Mu's safety both physically and mentally. She couldn't deny the fact that her heart both broke and soared at the thought of the young Time Tot in the bed. Although she feared the Doctor, neither of them was alone any more.


	3. Chapter 3

Aching, the girl quietly slipped back into consciousness. The three people she had seen with the Doctor were sat by the end of her bed, deep in conversation. She noted that her earlier fear had faded, into a quiet acceptance of her death. Before she had been sent from Gallifrey in that prototype capsule, she had heard of how the Doctor, a feared veteran of many battles, had decreed there would be no more war, and how he planned to obliterate Time Lords and Daleks alike.

Sighing softly, she fell back into her memories of her House, growing up as the youngest by far. How the ever-encroaching war forced the closure of the Academies, returning home to find fear stalking the familiar halls. Her House, Arwythel, had been a small, obscure House, with no political power or attention, but filled with talented innovators. As the Daleks and the Doctor drew nearer, and destruction seemed guaranteed, she had been bundled into the capsule, and fired from Gallifrey, far away in time and space.

She had felt it. The resonance throughout all of time, as the background presence of all Gallifreyans woven into the psychic web vanished. She had spent days, weeks, falling through the vortex, desperately trying to sense anyone out there. Occasionally she felt touches of a consciousness, but it soon became clear that only two other Time Lords existed, and the others were among the most feared renegades, the subject of rumours and cautionary tales throughout her childhood. The Doctor and the Master. The Butcher of Skull Moon and the Horror of Kervanil.

She hid on the planet where she landed while, she imagined, the two survivors fought. Their emnity was legendary, but the result was always clear. The Predator of the Daleks became the Predator of Time Lords too. And she would be the final victim.

Cracking open an eye, she saw the female close by her bed, checking her readings, while the males sat across the room. They were victims as much as she, tales of the Doctor's habit of kidnapping inferior species, luring them to their deaths. She knew she was already dead, but there was hope for others.

'You need to run.' Startled, Yaz turned towards the quiet voice, still lying on the bed. Though cracks in the girl's eyelids, she could see her eyes. She was awake.

'Hello Beta Mu, my name is Yaz. Don't worry, you're safe here' she reassured the girl, remembering her police training.

'You need to escape, she'll kill us all' the girl replied, starting to get herself into a panic. 'I'm already dead, but you need to get your friends and escape, or the Doctor will kill you too.'

'Woah, woah, the Doc wouldn't hurt anyone!' Graham exclaimed, leaping over to the Doctor's defence, 'she's saved our lives more times than I can count!'

'Yeah,' agreed Ryan, as Yaz turned back to the young girl.

'Why are you frightened of her?' Beta Mu cast a glance at the three humans, before scanning the room for surveillance equipment. Not seeing any, she none the less lowered her voice

'She killed my family, destroyed my planet, spread fear across the universe. She was one of the stories we used to tell around the bonfires.' She looked down at her hands. 'I'm the last of my people, she's come to finish the job and kill me too.'

Yaz, Ryan and Graham stared at each other in silence, unable to reconcile this description of the Doctor with the person that they knew. Ryan thought back to when they were first looking for the TARDIS on Desolation, how the Doctor would go on about how 'brains beat bullets', and refusing to use weapons. Graham thought back to when they were on Ranskoor Av Kolos, the look on her face when he admitted he would kill Tim Shaw. But Yaz… Yaz thought back to when they had been tracking a Dalek on New Year's Day, and how the Doctor had said 'I learned how to think like a Dalek a long time ago'. She felt a shiver run down her spine, as Beta Mu's story became just that bit more believable.

Meanwhile, observing from the control room, the Doctor felt a tear slip down her face. If she tried hard enough, she could ignore the darker side of the legend surrounding her. She suddenly thought back to the Pandorica, the tale she had told Amy. _'A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could reason with it, one day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.'_

It was, quite literally, several lifetimes ago, but the pain was still there, and hearing the last of her kin speak of her with such fear had ripped the scab off the wound in the worst way possible. She had tried to make amends, but how could she ever fully repent? Would this be the consequence of her own actions, the only Gallifreyans to survive the Time War would have been twisted by her actions.

The Master, her oldest friend, whose friendship had twisted into enmity, sanity torn apart just like their planet. Beta Mu, a child so young she had not had the chance to choose her Title before her world was swept away. With a life span of millennia, the Time Tot was barely out of the crib. Orphaned so young, already having had to fend for herself on a foreign planet with no help, would she even remember her home planet when she was grown? Had she sentenced the last Gallifreyan to live cut adrift from the legacy and history which every Time Lord is bathed in.

Beta Mu would never be able to become a Time Lord or Lady, would neve be able to choose her title. She would remain paralysed in childhood, forced to either keep her Academy name, or go by another which would always give the pinching sensation of slightly-too-tight shoes. The Doctor had felt it, used it as penance during the Time War when she rejected her title, and she would not wish a lifetime of it on anyone, let alone the small child in the medbay. Then and there, in the core of her being, the Doctor made a vow to protect her until the day she died.


End file.
